Not Myself
by SemoSmoofe
Summary: When the two top students of Hogwarts finally meet, they create mass chaos verbally and physically.
1. Chapter One

Chapter One  
  
-  
  
Pop.  
  
The beautiful, antiqued village of Hogsmeade immediately came to her vision as she apparated from her home. It had a certain aura about it that made it seem as though she was in a fantasy land--the old-fashioned cobblestone path that had cracked a bit in its age, allowing dirt and even a little flowers peek through. She closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled the sweet aroma of butterbeer and chocolates, then glanced at her watch, put a hand on her cart (which was filled to the handle with her luggage and her owl cage on top) and continued down the path toward the castle. She could still hear her father's voice in her ear, telling her that she'll hurt herself with all of the luggage she had. A smile formed on her face, remembering the look he gave her when her mom finally explained to him that it was quite safe to let her apparate.   
  
Her trunks jumped with every groove that the wheels on the cart met on the path, as did her heartbeat. The closer she got to the carriage waiting for her, the more her pace seemed to quicken. By the time she reached it, her feet were nearly running. Flushed, she magicked her luggage from the cart to the back of the carriage, adjusted her Head Girl badge, then jumped in to the carriage, beaming with a certain pride that no one could replace. Professor McGonagall had instructed her when to be there, how to get there, and all the other details so that she might make the best use of the time at the school while she had it.   
  
"After all, you can always take advantage of the library space. No first-year students to bother you in asking where things are: total quiet. I expect you will be using this time to get yourself aquainted with everything you are unaware of."  
  
Throughout the entire ride, all she could think about was him. She was absolutely positive that he received Head Boy--after all, he had gotten lots of O.W.L.s and high scores on his N.E.W.T.s--why shouldn't he be? She closed her eyes as her heart fluttered at the thought of him. Being in the same room was enough satisfaction for her, but they had been in the same house since school started and were fellow prefects for two years. He just had to be Head Boy.  
  
After what seemed like hours, the carriage finally pulled up to the majestic castle, close enough to the front doors that she could magick her luggage back out and put it on a cart. She wasn't used to this luggage business, since the house elves had taken care of it six years prior. 'Then again,' she thought to herself, 'I've never been a week early to school before.' The doors opened for her, the sunlight illuminating the somewhat dark corridor that she entered into. As they swung shut behind her, she closed her hazel eyes and inhaled the sweet smell of the school. She would learn to love it more this year simply because she was partly in charge of it. Her posture straightened as she began to walk down the hallway, her chin held up in dignity.  
  
She wasn't used to going to a different corridor to find her room, as the Head Students' suite was on another floor than the House common rooms. Her heart skipped a beat, realizing that she was being held to a higher responsibility than before. She levitated the cart up the staircase and around the doorway, finding the portrait of the tall, handsome man.   
  
"Password?"  
  
"Locomortis."  
  
The portrait opened to reveal a lavish, warm room. The fireplaces had been lit, despite the fact that it was still slightly warm outside, and the warm glow of the sunset played with the glass in the windows. She looked all around her, taking in every single bit of it: bookcases lining the walls, an owlpost box on one of the windows, even many portraits of the head students from the past. It seemed that the witches smiled down upon her more so than the wizards did--but she didn't mind. She then made her way over to the Head Girl room.  
  
She opened the door and placed the cart inside the room next to the doorway and gasped. There was a bookcase filled with her favorite subjects, her own fireplace, a large canopy bed, and even her own table to work homework on. Her heart swelled, remembering the letter that she had sent Professor Dumbledore regarding what she would desire in her room--every single thing had been place inside. She set her trunks on her bed and her owl cage in the windowsill, ready for a shower and a nap.  
  
Opening her trunk, she laid out her pajama pants and a long-sleeved shirt to sleep in, then took her robes off. She hurried inside a doorway next to the one she had already entered and found a bathroom with a lavish bathtub being supported by brass lion claws for feet. The shower head above it was at least a foot in diameter and looked as though it were made out of gold.   
  
After changing out of her clothes, she jumped into the hot shower and immediately sighed with relief. She could definitely get used to this.  
  
-  
  
"Locomortis," Ron said as he stood in front of the portrait of a tall bloke. The portrait opened revealing the large room that he would share with the head girl.   
  
He grinned to himself, thinking about what it would be like to share this space with Hermione all year. Of course, she'd probably insist on using it as a study space, but he had a feeling he might be able to talk her into using it for other things. Quidditch victory parties, perhaps? Also, it made things so much easier. No longer would the three of them have to endure Moaning Myrtle's company if they wanted to have a private word with one another inside Hogwarts. All they'd have to do now was meet here.  
  
With a flick of his wrist he levitated his trunk into the room with gold "Head Boy" letters on the door. He was so surprised by his room that he dropped his wand, causing the trunk to drop on his toe.   
  
"Bloody hell," he whispered, half in pain, and half in awe at what lay before him. There were Chudley Cannon posters on the wall, a desk, a collection of the best Quidditch playbooks he'd ever seen and a beautiful marble chess set in the corner.   
  
He limped over to one of the two other doors and opened it, revealing a walk-in closet. The second door revealed a large bathroom with a door connecting to what he assumed was the Head Girl's room. The steam from the shower she was taking wafted over him. He grinned as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.  
  
He stepped up beside the thin curtain that seperated him and his best friend in all her naked glory and raised an eyebrow. "Hey, getting hot and soapy just for me?"  
  
Her heart suddenly beat very hard in her chest. Her face turned red at the mention of the subject, but she shrugged inwardly and grinned as though he could see it. "Maybe I am," she said coyly, rinsing her hair.  
  
Ron felt his temperature rise. He smiled broadly, as his hand reached out pulled the curtain back slightly, but not enough to actually see anything.   
  
"Well, if you need any help, let me know. As Head Boy, it's my responsibility and my honor to help those in need of assistance," he quoted mockingly from the letter that McGonagall had sent him only a week ago, enjoying the new twist he had put on them.  
  
Her face turned red hot at the sudden forwardness from him. She saw the curtain begin to shift, so she grabbed it and wrapped it under her arm so everything from her chest down was covered. Her eyes immediately focused and the color immediately drained from her face as she felt her smile go along with it. "Ron?!" she demanded, pulling the curtain tighter to hide her body. "What in blazes are you doing in here?"  
  
Ron stepped back abruptly from the girl clutching the shower curtain around her. "Patil?" he asked, unbelievingly. "What are you doing here?" He looked around the room as if to verify that he was in the right bathroom. "Why are you in our bathroom?"   
  
"You say 'our bathroom' like it belongs to you... but I should be asking you that. This bathroom belongs to the Head Boy and Head Girl. Where is Anthony? Why the hell are you here? You never answered me."   
  
"Exactly!" Ron said, crossing his arms over his chest. "This is the Head Boy and Head Girl's bathroom. Making it my bathroom."   
  
Padma reached down carefully to the faucet to turn the water off. "Can you please hand me a towel and not stand and gape at me?"  
  
He pulled a towel off the towel bar and shoved it at her. "Anthony? Goldstien? Bloody hell if I know where he is. I'm not his keeper, am I? I'm here because this is my bathroom. So, if you leave now, I won't tell anyone about you sneaking in here to take a shower," he said in a rush, aware that his ears were red.   
  
"And I'm not gaping," he lied, looking her in the eye.  
  
Padma yanked the towel out of his hands and wrapped it around herself protectively. She found that the bottom hem of the towel barely reached past her hips and covered just enough to keep wandering eyes from seeing things. "You mean to tell me that you are the Head Boy? Not Anthony?" Swinging a leg over the bathtub wall, she carefully maneuvered her feet to touch the soft bathrug. Her balance briefly left her as she clung her left hand to her towel and her right hand flailing to the side.  
  
Ron tried to be a gentleman and look the other way as Padma (and it had to be Padma because Parvati wouldn't ever mention Goldstien) manuevered herself out of the bathtub. He caught a few glimpses of dark leg and a flailing arm before she finally looked up at him. Once she gained her balance back, she looked up from her feet to realize that her face was only inches from Ron's chest. Her eyes were guided to the shiny Head Boy badge on his robes as her heart sunk down to the puddled floor.  
  
"That's right, I'm Head Boy," he said with a sigh. "Hermione's Head Girl and you are just a deranged Ravenclaw who was probably looking forward to school starting so much that you actually got here a week early." He paused. "Wait a minute, how did you get in here, anyway? How did you know the password?"  
  
She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. "Do I look like Hermione Granger to you? For your information, I know the password from my letter that stated I was Head Girl. I think your little girlfriend misguided you." Padma began to walk into her room, but stopped in the doorway and turned to face Ron. "I may be a deranged Ravenclaw, but at least I'm smart," she quipped.  
  
Ron's mind failed to process the information that had just been thrown at him. "What do you mean you're..." but his words were cut off by the shutting of her door.   
  
Hermione wasn't Head Girl? How could that be possible? He shook his head. It simply wasn't. Hermione was the smartest witch at Hogwarts. Hadn't she always been?  
  
He stared at the closed door for a moment. The girl was clearly out of her mind with disappointment. He walked across the bathroom and knocked loudly on her door.   
  
Padma, who had dropped her towel to change into her pajamas, looked around frantically for a place to hide her body. She bolted behind her bed and yelled, "What do you want?" Her hands scurried across the bedsheet to reach for her clothes before Ron could walk in and see her. He had struck a chord in her mind, and it wasn't a pretty one--after all, he was the one who had ditched her at the Yule Ball for Hermione. Since then, she never got along with him, and didn't expect their relationship to go very well.  
  
Quickly slipping on her undergarments and pajamas, a dozen thoughts flew through her mind. 'Where's Anthony? How could Weasley be the smartest boy at Hogwarts? Anthony must have scored higher than him. What's going on, is this a joke?' She sat on the floor and leaned back against the soft side of the bed.  
  
Ron swung the door open, stepping into the nicely decorated room. His eyes travelled over the bookcase, desk and bed, not spotting her.   
  
"Look," he called out into the dim room. "I understand that you're disappointed. Hermione's earned this title fair and square though. The last thing she needs is to get here and find you in her room."  
  
He spotted movement on the other side of the bed and began walking towards her. "You'll make her feel bad for being smarter than you," he said as nicely as he could. "Now, I think you should come with me to Dumbledore's office. That way we can get this all sorted out before Hermione gets here."  
  
Padma jumped up from her spot and spun around, forgetting that she was wearing a pink tank top and matching pink rubber duckie pajama pants. "Listen, I don't know where you got the idea that she was Head Girl, but I have the letter, with my name on it, to prove that I am Head Girl. I have--" she reached inside of her trunk and retrieved something shiny, "--the badge to prove it, and I have the knowledge that she doesn't," she replied, tapping her temple with her finger. "I'm sorry that you are disappointed because now that I'm here, you won't get to snog with Granger." Turning on her heel, she marched over to her closet and opened it up to find a vast amount of shelving and plenty of room for her robes and clothes. Ron stared at the Head Girl badge lying on the bed.   
  
Hermione hadn't gotten it. Padma Patil was here. Ron felt a strange feeling in his stomach. Hermione was going to be so very disappointed. He stared at the girl who had taken her place as head of the class and head of the school. She took out her wand from her waistband, which she had on hand at all times, and levitated her trunk over to her feet. Popping the trunk open, she began to take her clothes out and hang them on the hangers. He watched as she began to unpack. Filling the room with her belongings. Padma seemed to have a system with her clothes--robes on the left, shirts in the middle sorted by color, skirts on the right, pants folded in the shelves on the right. Halfway through her unpacking, she whirled back around to see Ron watching her.  
  
"Pardon me, do I look like I need someone watching me unpack without any help?"   
  
"There's been some sort of mistake," he said quietly. "There has to have been."  
  
Padma smiled smugly at Ron. "I'm sorry, I guess there was -- Hermione Granger made a mistake. Guess I didn't!" She turned back around and began to place her myriad of shoes in the boxes inside the shelves. Part of her was sad for Ron, that she wasn't what he expected, and another part of her was sad for Anthony. He had worked terribly hard for the Head Boy position, but she wagered that he at least got Prefect again this year. She crossed her fingers.  
  
After she finished, she closed the closet door and placed the trunk under her bed. Peeking around Ron, she found the owl perch she had requested, then she walked over to the windowsill where she had left her tawny owl, Ramosus. Padma opened the door to the cage and held out her arm for the owl to walk out on. She walked over to the owl perch, moving around Ron, and guided the owl onto it. She dusted her hands off as if she had done hard labor and sighed.  
  
Her eyebrow raised, realizing that he had still been watching her with a strange look on his face. "Now that my unpacking is finished and the audience is on the edge of his chair, I'd like to thank the Academy.."  
  
"Very funny," he said darkly, as he turned and stormed towards the door. He stopped right beside it and looked back at her in her pink tank top and duck pants. "Next time you're in the shower... lock the bloody door, will you?"  
  
He stepped out into the common room they shared, slamming the door behind him. He sighed as he made his way to his room. He had thought it was just luck that had earned him the title of Head Boy. He snorted. Obviously he had been right. Luck had played a part in things. Bad luck.  
  
He shut his eyes imagining a whole year of having to share a dormitory with Padma Patil. Sure, the girl was pretty enough, and smart, but she was no Hermione.  
  
Padma crawled into her bed, ignoring Ramosus' wings flapping in annoyance of the door slamming, and buried herself in the blankets. She peeked out of the blankets to glance at the clock that had been placed on the wall directly facing the bed and saw that it was 7:00pm. Snuggling back under the blankets, she felt her eyes already drooping from exhaustion. All she wanted right now was sleep, escape, and something to make her week worth the while.  
  
Ron walked over to his trunk and popped it open with a sigh. Suddenly there was a loud explosion that shook the stone floor below him. He watched in awe as a mini-fireworks show erupted from his trunk, leaving the words "Congrats, Head Boy" floating in the air between the ceiling and the ground. Ron shook his head. He could have sworn he had checked his trunks twice for surprises from the twins before leaving the Burrow.  
  
Just as Padma had drifted off into a peaceful dream, she heard loud noises coming from the room on the other side of the bathroom. She pressed the pillow against her ears in an attempt to sleep, but was still hearing the banging noises. Finally, she threw the blankets off of herself and marched out of her room and into the common room.  
  
Bangbangbangbangbang. Her fist hitting Ron's door was remarkably louder than the sizzles, pops, and bangs coming from the room. Placing her hands on her hips, she prepared herself to gripe at Ron. Hopefully her appearance--baggy eyes, frazzled hair, and huge scowl--would scare him into shutting up.  
  
Ron swung the door open and stared at the girl who was glaring at him. "Damn, Patil," he said looking her over. "You look rough."   
  
"I would look asleep if you weren't in your room making a bloody racket."  
  
"Oh, right," Ron said, leaning against the doorpost lazily. He smirked down at her. "Sorry about that, I sort of had a surprise waiting for me. You should really get back to sleep, you know? You could use some beauty rest."  
  
Padma frowned up at Ron and combed her fingers through her hair to try and make it somewhat presentable, but shook her head. 'Why do I care what this prat thinks?' She leaned on the doorpost that Ron was leaning on and mocked his stance. "What kind of surprise?" she asked, her eyebrow raised slightly.  
  
"Just something my brothers set up for me," Ron said, waving towards the fading letters in the middle of the room. "Sort of a going away present."   
  
Padma shivered, feeling his breath come down on the top of her head. "Well I'm glad your family.. cares so much about you." She turned around and began to walk back to her room.   
  
"Yeah," Ron said, frowning slightly as he watched her slim figure walk across the room to her dorm. "Look, I'm sorry about the noise, I didn't realize they had put it there for me."  
  
She waved a hand behind her. "That's fine, I'm going to bed. Try not to make so much noise this time."  
  
"Goodnight to you too," Ron muttered darkly before shutting the door on her. He shook his head as he padded over to his bed, still not able to believe it.   
  
Who would have thought? Padma Bloody Patil.  
  
He extinguished the light in his room with a sigh and a flick of his wand.  
  
Padma stopped in the middle of the room and turned to look at the door where Ron had been standing. He's not Anthony. She sighed and scratched the back of her head, gazed a bit longer at the gold label on his door, then sauntered back to her dark room.  
  
Definitely not Anthony.  
  
--  
  
And that's not what I wanted to see  
  
'cause nobody wants to believe they could be so wrong  
  
But one thing is clear, it's what I needed to know  
  
But it's not what I wanted to hear  
  
Sometimes my intuition  
  
Can get carried away..  
  
-Not What I Wanted To Hear - Terri Clark 


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two  
  
"..and then you perform the flick-swish-flick method after adding eye of carp, followed by adding a pinch of mandrake leaves," Padma chanted to herself, walking circles in her room. "After that, you stir with the tip of your wand--no, that isn't right. You first add the...er...bloody cripes. This ruddy potions exam is going to be the end of me," she muttered, leaning against the wall next to the door. A curly strand fell in her eye, but she was too lazy to merely brush it out. No, she was too concerned with the grumbling coming from the previously-silent common room.  
  
Ron threw his quill down on top of his potions essay and rubbed his eyes vigorously.   
  
"Get it together, man," he mumbled to himself. Ordinarily, he would have already had the essay completed and being proofread by Hermione. But not today, as he had decided to avoid the company of his best friends after the thinly veiled annoyance Harry had shown out on the Quidditch pitch today.  
  
He knew he couldn't blame Harry for being annoyed at him. He had played bloody awful today. He just couldn't concentrate. Things kept moving in and out of focus in his mind, making it impossible to do things he ordinarily could have done with his eyes closed. In fact, he had decided to do his homework in the common room because he felt like if he was within ten feet of his bed, he'd fall in it and not get anything done. Not that it seemed to be helping. The tabletop he was working on didn't look as fluffy as his pillow, but it would work.  
  
Padma leaned against the doorframe, facing inside the common room. She observed Ron's head slowly rest against his forearms as they folded under him against the table, and grinned slightly. She quietly walked over to him, only on the balls of her feet in order to stay silent, and leaned over his shoulder to see what he was working on.  
  
"Potions, eh?" she said, letting it slip. She sunk back against the back of the couch.  
  
Ron's head jerked up at the sound of her voice. He was jolted out of the haze that had been surrounding him. He gave his suitemate a dark look as he picked up his quill and sighed.  
  
"Right, potions," he said, squinting down at the paper and trying to remember where he'd left off.  
  
Padma pulled herself up on the back of the couch, her legs dangling and swinging like a child. "I suppose that class is giving you qualms also?" she asked, folding her hands in her lap. She felt a small resentment building up inside of her chest again, just like every time she found Ron around the common room, napping. Each time, it rose up into her throat; every time she almost found courage to scold him, he would leave the room.  
  
"Qualms, sweaty palms, you name it," Ron said, frowning down at the paper. "Right now, the only potion I want to know is the one that will glue Snape's arse to his chair so that he can't walk around like he's lord over all of us. Now that is a potion that I would willingly write a three foot essay on."  
  
For once in the evening, Padma's head laid back as she emitted a hearty laugh. "And I would willingly collaborate with you on that one. Can you believe he's springing twenty four inches of essay and an exam on us even before winter break? He's one sordid man, I tell you." She jumped down from the couch and sat in the chair on the table. "Though, even if we did collaborate on a potion, you'd end up hexing me or something."  
  
Ron snorted and looked up at her. He scooted a bit away from the table and leaned back, crossing his arms. "Yeah right, Patil. You're the last person who would pull a prank on anyone, nevertheless a professor. Pulling pranks is an art in itself. It takes imagination, not just cunning and planning. You don't have it in you."  
  
"I don't have it in me, you say?" she asked, her eyebrows rising on her forehead. She laughed a bit, then propped her head up with her arm. "Weasley, I don't think you can even handle my pranks. Just because you haven't seen me pull any doesn't mean any of them haven't been my responsibility." She mimicked Ron's position, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back. "Remember the day last year when Malfoy ran from Greenhouse three, carrying on about the plants talking to him?" she asked, smiling evilly.  
  
Now it was Ron's turn to raise an eyebrow. "That was you?" He asked, not believing his ears. He had laughed about that incident for weeks afterwards, until Hermione had told him to grow up. "There's no way in Hades that was you."   
  
Padma smiled silently, leaning back in her chair. "Not only is there a way in Hades it was me, but I've pranked that bloody git so many times since second year that no one has even noticed--he thought he was going nutters and didn't say a word to anyone." She smugly looked at her sleeve and played with the loose thread on it, keeping a smirk on her face.  
  
Ron looked at her squarely, grinning as he uncrossed his arms, and sat up. He shook his head. "I don't believe you. You're too..." he searched for a word to describe Padma, "too...restrained to ever do anything unpredictable like that."  
  
"Who else would turn his robes bright pink?" she asked, standing up and walking over to the fireplace. "I only look restrained to keep myself from getting detention, you see." She brought out her wand and waved it at the fire, creating a few shapes with the flying embers over the hearth. "And anyway, I don't need to prove anything to you. I'm much better at pranks than you are, I'd wager."  
  
"I knew it had to be a girl," Ron muttered to himself at the reminder of Draco's pink robes. He had even bought a few photos off of Creevey so that he'd never forget the hilarious moment.   
  
He looked up at the girl infront of him. She was slender and didn't look very menacing at all, but he had learned better than to underestimate her. However, he couldn't stop himself from laughing at her last comment. "Wager, eh? Now you're talking betting?" He reached out and put his hand on her forehead as if he was checking her temperature. "Are you feeling alright, Patil? What would Dumbledore say if he knew his head girl was trying to make wagers with the head boy? Over pranking no less."  
  
Padma slapped his hand away from her forehead. "I'm just fine, Ron. I'm a very innocent-looking, guilty girl. Now," she said, leaning in slightly, "are you in or not? Can you out-prank me?" She held out her hand as though she was waiting for a handshake.  
  
As she held out her hand, she looked Weasley over. He seemed to be a challenge, for once--not like Draco Malfoy, who was "all bark and no bite," as the muggle saying went. On the contrary, Ron seemed to be enough to give her something new, something interesting.  
  
Ron smiled. It wasn't a grin or half smile--it was a real smile. Something that he hadn't done since the school year had started, bringing one problem after another. For a few seconds, he forgot about the shop, Quidditch, Harry's annoyance, Hermione's worrying, his potions homework and his need for sleep. For a few seconds, he wasn't Head Boy, or almost a man, or anything...but a boy. The boy he'd always been.  
  
"Alright," he said, taking her hand in his. His hand was so large that it almost buried hers in his long and slender fingers. He shook on it. "I'm in."  
  
She felt her small hand become enveloped in his, which was slightly calloused from Quidditch, and enthusiastically shook it. "Right. For the next month, we're allowed five pranks each, which should amount to one per week for each of us. No more than that," she said, raising her eyebrows at him. She slowly took her hand away from his, then rounded the table and sat down again, grabbing a piece of his parchment and quill.  
  
Ignoring his protests, she began writing. "Now, after you sign this, you have to pinky swear with me, then sign with your blood. Precautionary, you know," she said casually as she wrote the rules of the agreement.  
  
"Bloody hell, Patil," Ron said as he watched her move his potions essay aside hastily. "This is a bet, I'm not signing my life away. I think we both trust one another to play by the rules..."  
  
Didn't she?   
  
As if answering his question, Padma looked up at him. "Weasley, last time I trusted anyone's word on a prank challenge, they went against the rules and turned my entire wardrobe bright yellow and enchanted it to sing whenever someone passed me on the left." She glared at him with complete seriousness as he snickered at her. "Permanently."  
  
Well, that explained why she didn't wear much yellow, didn't it?   
  
He rolled his eyes as he held his hand out for the quill to sign. His mind was already racing with prank possibilities. He was going to have to enlist Fred and George's help with this one. They owed him at least that since they so shamelessly took advantage of his manual labor.   
  
Padma handed him the quill and watched him sign. "We had to bloody burn the entire closet. It was horrid, watching a pile of yellow clothes burn, all the while hearing it shriek the tune of 'God Save the Queen.' Really, I can't hear that song without wanting to burn myself now." She shuddered at the thought.  
  
Ron grinned, "And who was that imaginative cheat? You have to admit it was a brilliant idea."  
  
Padma took the quill from him so that she could sign it herself. "You would never guess." She signed her name, then stuck her pinky out for him to link it with hers. "Pinky swear that you will not cheat or get any help from anyone, or else I will be forced to break your pinky finger. Same with me."  
  
Ron laughed, as he entwined his finger with hers, but the smile quickly faded into a sound of pain as she tightened her finger. "Ow...alright, alright. I swear."   
  
He released his finger and looked specuatively at the girl infront of him. He had a feeling that this wasn't going to be as easy as he had first assumed.  
  
As she cut her fingertip with the end of the quill, she flinched slightly at the pain as well as the blood. She pressed her finger on the paper next to her name, then handed the quill back to Ron. Without looking up, she sucked on her fingertip and examined the paper. "It was Parvati."  
  
"Parvati?" Ron asked in shock, dropping the quill. "I don't believe it."  
  
He bent down to pick up the quill. "Who would have thought Parvati would have it in her?" He pricked his finger, making a big show of not wincing and put his fingerprint down on the paper.   
  
"Then again," he said with pride, almost as an afterthought. "She is a Gryffindor."  
  
"It's not that she's a Gryffindor," she said through her finger in her mouth as she stood up. She walked across the room to the bookshelf, where she retrieved an old, worn book.   
  
"She's a Patil."  
  
Padma walked back over to the table and sat the book down by the spine, allowing it to crackle open. In it was a plethora of moving pictures, all containing pictures of two young, dark-haired girls playing together, some with parents. "We were raised to believe that anything worth doing was worth doing correctly. We taught ourselves how to successfully follow through in everything we did--mostly pranks. Parvati and I both came up with fantastic ideas to get each other, but eventually our plans were found and foiled by our mum." She nibbled her lip and gazed down at the pictures.  
  
"Well, it would be a bit difficult to hide a yellow wardrobe, wouldn't it?" he asked looking at the pictures. They reminded him of when he was younger and how his house had always been full of siblings to spend the day with and find new adventures. "So were you and Parvati close?" he asked, curious. "I mean, when you were younger?" It was possible that they were close now, but it was rarely that he ever saw them exchange words, nevertheless hug one another like the poses in the pictures from when they were children.  
  
Padma folded her arms over on the table and rested her chin on them. "Rather close, actually. And for a long time, we were inseperable. I suppose the deciding time was ultimately when we were sorted into different houses. For a year or two, we tried to stay very close, but it just so happens that Parvati and I have different values. She decided to distance herself from me, since we are so opposite in our personal beliefs." She gazed at the pictures blankly, watching the two identical girls hug each other's necks, dance together, and smile gleefully.  
  
"Yeah," Ron said a little sadly, looking down at his hands. "I suppose everyone changes, even your family. Our family used to be really close, but then everyone sort of grew up and branched off and now we're lucky if we can get everyone together for Christmas. And Percy..." He tapered off, realizing that he was talking about this with Padma Patil of all people. "Well...he's different," he finished hurridly, gathering his parchment more for something to occupy his hands than as a sign that he was getting ready to leave.  
  
Padma cocked her head in curiosity. "Different? How?" she asked, hoping she wasn't prying. She probably was. Then again, she talked freely about the differences between herself and Parvati. Why shouldn't someone else feel the same about their siblings?  
  
Ron's head snapped up at her and he studied her face for a moment. He debated on whether or not to tell Padma about how Percy had been distancing himself from the family for the last two years. How he hadn't even come to his father's bedside when he'd been ill. She had an open and sincere face, just like Parvati's. But if he'd learned anything from their conversation tonight it was that she could be cunning when she wanted to be.  
  
"Just different," he said shrugging and looking uncomfortable as he broke the eye contact. He yawned and made a big show of stretching. "Well, I think I'm going to call it a night. I've got some brilliant pranks to dream up."  
  
She blinked for a moment, recovering from the gaze he had been giving her, and shut her family photo album. "Right, me too. Good luck with that, we start tomorrow," she said, standing up. She dusted the book off idly, as though she were waiting for Ron for something.  
  
He grinned at her, picking up his parchment and quill with their blood intermixed on the tip. "Right, good luck with you too."  
  
He stood there a moment, feeling like he should say more but being at a loss as to what that should be. "Goodnight," he said finally and not a little awkwardly as he got up and make quick strides to his door. He shut the door behind him and leaned up against it, thinking over their conversation. It had been interesting. Who would have guessed Patil of all people had been behind Malfoy's pink robes?   
  
He smiled to himself. This was going to be fun.  
  
Padma stood, her sight lingering at his shut door, as she held the photo album to her chest. She smiled smally and blinked a few tears from her eyes, unseen by Ron earlier. She missed her sister, even if she persecuted her free will. She longed for the relationship that Ron had with his siblings. She shook her head. You're not jealous of a Weasley.  
  
"Goodnight."  
  
--  
  
Sharp disaster in a fresh new coma  
  
Was it worth it when it was over?  
  
Proving yourself right, you'd make the biggest noise.  
  
Well, I'd lock my hands behind my head,  
  
I'd cover my heart and hit the deck,  
  
I'd brace myself for the impact if I were you.  
  
-Am I Missing - Dashboard Confessional 


End file.
